Syracuse, NY -- As I stood in the tiny McCooey Field pressbox on Tuesday night in Geneva and watched the controversial play unfold, I was wedged between duos of radio broadcasters covering the Syracuse-Hobart men's lacrosse game To my left was the crew working for a Syracuse station; to my right was the crew working for a Geneva station.

Their contradictory reaction to Hobart coach T.W. Johnson's decision to call timeout with his team on the attack with a numbers advantage akin to a fast break in basketball in sudden-death provided a microcosm for the debate that raged afterward in internet chat rooms.

Here is how it went down from my vantage point: The score was tied at 8 heading into sudden death, and after a ground ball battle Hobart gained possession of the critical faceoff that started the extra session. Alex Caton, the long pole winger who finally gained control, had two SU players converging on him as he streaked up the sideline. He flipped a pass to the middle ofr the field, where faceoff specialist Bobby Dattilo was all alone. Suddenly, the Statesmen had transition. Dattilo raced into the SU box and flicked a pass to his left toward teammate Tim Bigelow, who was wide open about 12 yards in front of the cage. Bigelow was set up to unleash a shot with his right hand, but the pass was low and to his left-hand side. It skipped past him and rolled out of bounds.

Now for the controvery. As the ball was rolling away from Bigelow played halted and the officials ruled that Johnson had called timeout. My eyes were focused on what could have been the decisive goal, and I ha d no idea when Johnson called for the TO. I never heard the whistle, so that offered no clue. Was it as soon as the player stepped into the box, prompting him to flip an errant pass when he heard the whistle? Or was it after he passed it but before Bigelow made what appeared to be a half-hearted stab at the ball as it went by? I saw the TV replay last night, and it appeared that the TO was called as soon as Dattilo stepped in to the box and before he passed the ball. He certainly looked unhappy as he strode toward the sideline and the huddle.

The Syracuse radio crew saw it that way, opining that Hobart had better score when play resumed or Johnson was going to have some explaining to do. The Geneva crew hailed Johnson as a genius, opining that he saved the team from committing a huge turnover with his heads-up decision. Thus, the debate afterward.

Sad to say I can offer only a little insight in retrospect, as neither Dattilo nor Bigelow was around by the time I made it to the Hobart interview area after talking to SU players and coaches (the visiting team usually goes first so it can get on the bus and leave, and in this case the two interview rooms were in different buildings on campus). That noted, I did ask T.W. about it afterward. Here is what he said when I asked him if the plan all along was to call timeout immediately if his team won the critical draw (a common practice so a coach can remove his faceoff specialists, set up a play and get his best offensive players on the field):

"No," he said. "I wanted to do it. It was one of those things. I called it and didn’t realize the angle (Bigelow) had. I wanted us to have the ball. I felt like we were having some success with a couple different formations six-on-six in creating some shots. We were going to go back to the same two-man stuff on the wings with the picks, with the way we scored the tying goal (by Chris Pederson with 1:04 left in regulation). We wanted to go back to that. We felt that the midfield unit we were running at that point and our attack was having some good chemistry. So, we were going to give that a shot. That’s why I called it. We wanted to get the ball and see if we could do something with it."

I followed up by saying he would be exonerated or condemned by exactly when he called the timeout, before the pass left the stick (killing transition) or after (saving a turnover).

"That’s a classic example of either people love you or they don’t," Johnson said. "The pass was low and to his off stick (side), so I’m going with that."

Hobart failed to score on the play that was set up in the huddle, and SU's Stephen Keogh won it for the Orange a few minutes later. The debate rages on, but from this vantage point it's awfully tough to second-guess a split-second decision either way.